Mushroom Hunting in France

The season I like best in France is early fall. It’s still beautiful in Normandy and the days are often sunny and warm with just that hint of fall weather to come. It’s this season that calls to me most as I haul out my waterproof hiking boots and rain gear.

Early Days of foraging

It also is the time when our weekend walks in the forests near home have me sniffing the air for the unmistakeable aroma of mushrooms. Having grown up in a Czech/Canadian family, fall mushroom hunts on our way up to the cabin in Whistler were obligatory.

Dad would stop the car on a stretch of highway, we’d all pile out of the car and run quickly across the highway into the woods next to the river. There, mom and dad would instruct us in the fine art of mushroom hunting.

Those early outings anchored into my being the love of searching for anything I can find in nature. I come home with pockets full of shells, raptor feathers, rocks and if I’m lucky, a crystal or some fossils.

Hunting for Free Food

The best, though, is when I find edible mushrooms! Suffice it to say that when I moved to France in October 2016, I was delighted to discover that my husband is also an avid mushroom hunter. What luck!

Each fall we scour our secret spots and hope for the motherload. The rule is, never tell someone your spot, and if you meet someone on the path, cover your basket and if they ask where you got them, point them in the exact opposite directions of where you’d just come from. Ahem…

Mushroom varieties

Often, we find what are called girolle en tube, or winter chanterelles, and hedgehog mushrooms that have little white spines on the undersides. If we’re really lucky, we discover a patch of beautiful golden chanterelles. Of course, the holy grail of mushrooms in Europe are the beloved Cepes de Bordeaux.

One year we were wandering through our spot when my husband informed me in his authoritative manner, ” Dana, cepes often sprout around the base of an oak tree, like that one over there.” He indicated a beautiful oak tree perched on top of an ancient rock wall.

I thought, right, fat chance. There is a reason why its called mushroom “hunting” in English because they’re actually really hard to find despite what some people would say.

I jumped down into the cow field, instantly sinking down into a hole and fill my boots with water. I squelched along the pitted terrain while my husband crashed through the branches on the other side of the wall next to the creek.

As I approached the aforementioned oak tree, I noticed a few little bumps about three meters away in the field next to the tree. All of a sudden I spied them.

There was a ring of the most perfect, fresh cepes I’d ever seen in my life. I squealed and jumped up and down, sending water up and over the sides of my boots.

My husband appeared over the rock wall, clambering to the top and I watched as his eyes grew as big as saucers as he spied the beauties around my feet.

Within a few short minutes we had totally filled our baskets. What luck! I have never been so elated in all my life as finding these amazing mushrooms, especially knowing how delicious they are.

We continued along our merry way, hearts and baskets full of promise and delight.

Once we got home, though, exhausted from all the excitement, muddy and scratched up from pushing through brambles, we look at the baskets and with synchronised sighs, we knew we had to deal with the mushrooms right then and there before they went bad.

Mushrooms wait for no man, and anyone who’s found a beautiful shaggy mane mushroom at its prime knows they either need to cook and eat it the same day or find it has turned into a puddle of black ink by morning. Interestingly, people used to use that ink to write.

Alas, this is the procedure for how we “deal” with the mushrooms we find.

First we sort them into types and most importantly, we never pick any mushroom we cannot identify clearly. If we don’t know it, we don’t pick it.

Even still, my husband inspects every single mushroom we find and if he doesn’t like the look of it, off it goes into the garbage, and definitely not into the compost bin.

We then set about cutting the cepes in half, from top to bottom to see if they are clean or infested with worms. Very wormy mushrooms get tossed. This time, though, we were lucky the mushrooms were in amazing shape; firm, blemish free and perfect.

We generally cut away the sponge part under the cap, scrape any dirt, pine needles and general forest floor waste off the mushrooms and then place them in a collander

After that, we rinse the mushrooms, and while they absorb some water, we prefer to have clean mushrooms before we cook them.

Once cleaned, we haul out every fry pan we own, heat them up slowly over the gas, add a good drizzle of olive oil and then fry the mushrooms in batches until they are well cooked.

We do not add salt, garlic, cheese or any dairy products like butter or cream. We simply cook them in oil and then when they are well cooked, about 8 minutes for each batch, 4 minutes a side, or more, depending on how thick the slices are.

We then scoop them out, drain them on paper towels and once cool we pack them in freezer bags for portion sizes and then freeze them for the wonder risottos with a roast chicken or pork in the winter months.

And Voila.

Mushroom hunting in France is one of life’s great pleasures, but as a mycologist( mushroom scientist) once joked; ” Every mushroom is edible….Once!”

Mushroom Themed T-shirts

I thought that was so funny I designed two T-shirts with this on them. Check them out on my Etsy store, or click on the pictures to take you directly to my listings. The Green on is in English and if you want to get all fancy and stuff, the right one is in French.

So, next time you find yourself going on a beautiful fall walk in a forest near your own home, tilt your head into the air and take a good sniff. You may just detect a hint of mycellium bubbling away under the surface and getting ready to send its fruiting body of mushrooms into the open air.

Mushrooms are fascinating and one of the things that astonishes me is how intrinsic they are to life on this planet. If you want to learn more, there is an amazing book I read early in 2022 called Entangled Life, by Merlin Sheldrake. It’s worth a read.

Until next time my friends. Enjoy mushroom hunting and make sure you only pick what you know absolutely! Also, it’s recommended that you also never eat wild mushrooms that someone else has picked. Be careful, do your research, consult experts, and enjoy every moment outside in nature.

Bisous,

Dana